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Sunday, June 21, 2020

REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE AND THE CURRENT CRISIS OF FATHERLESSNESS, SEXUAL INDENTITY CRISIS AND CRIMINAL REBELLION



James Dean's next to the last movie in the mid 1950's was "Rebel without a Cause."  It is a commentary on youth of that period and the angst they go through. It deals in an implied way with what happens to boys in general when they grow up without a strong father figure. Implied too is latent homosexuality because of this and there is also flirtation with incest or disordered affections in this regard with the female lead and her relationship with her father.

Let's start with the female, Natalie Wood's character, going through her teenage angst transitioning from a child to a beautiful adult woman. She wants the flirtatious childhood relationship with her father but he slaps her in the face when she gets too affectionate with him as a blossoming young teenager. Implied, of course, is that the dad finds his daughter sexually attractive and he wants to avoid acting on any disordered affections and thus comes across to his daughter as no longer loving her which leads to her teenage angst.

James Dean's character is going through angst on many levels and much of his rebellion has to do with his father who is weak, female-like and henpecked. He is not a masculine role model for his son, so Dean creates that model within himself and his courageous attempts to deal with bullies in a gang and a car scene that turns out to be deadly for his rival whom he comes to like.

Sal Mineo's part is that of a bit younger teenage boy grappling with same sex attraction but based upon his father leaving the family, his mother absent most of the time and his black maid who becomes his surrogate mother who loves him and he her. He sees in the James Dean figure the father he hasn't had, the masculinity he exudes which is Dean's character  overcompensating for his fathe'sr lack of  masculinity and courage.

There is certainly an implied hero worship in their relationship. Dean's character loves the younger teenager's affection and adulation, but dean's character is no homosexual.  He is a father-like character for Mineo's character.

Nonetheless the fatherlessness of these characters leads to the tragic conclusion of this motion picture.

While the main stream media focuses in on racial inequality in this country and how some in law enforcement have over-reacted to blacks they come into contact with, there is no concern about black on black crime in this country and our larger cities like Chicago.

Some influential black men are speaking out, thanks be to God. They diagnose the crime rate in the black community which is primarily black on black crime and murders, as a result of young men who have no strong father figures or absent fathers. Strong women take their place, but this is not effective in a boy's life, a teenager's life, or a young adult's life.

This leads to drug abuse, belonging to gangs where courage and masculinity is measure by crime and illicit sex and fathering of children only to become an absent father too.

The Church has much to say and teach on this subject but is now marginalized and must focus on other issues that the main stream media desires to do, that of racism in the white community.

But there is no focus on the root cause of problems in black community which began to escalate in the late 1950's and well into the 70's, the break down of the once strong black family in the USA and in the south which has nothing to do with racism but everything to do with the media's promotion of sexual immorality, a neglect on those who promote the drug culture and a welfare system that enables immoral behavior to get more money.

Blacks have to solve this problem and they have the wherewithal to do it. They don't need whites telling them what to do or how to do it. 

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Sal Mineo's part is that of a bit younger teenage boy grappling with same sex attraction but based upon his father leaving the family, his mother absent most of the time and his black maid who becomes his surrogate mother who loves him and he her."

The problem with this spurious diagnosis is that many gay men come from families in which the father is very much present, not "weak, female-like and henpecked," and who are fine masculine role models for their children.

"A major new study of homosexual men and women by the Kinsey Institute for Sex Research has found little or no support for most of the traditional theories (absent father, weak father) about the origins of homosexuality." (NYTimes 23 August 1981 based on Indiana University Press as ''Sexual Preference: Its Development in Men and Women.'')

Anonymous said...

How to describe a young, white supporter of BLM et al and protesting and even rioting, vandalizing and looting etc in the cities of the USA and the UK?

A Rebel Without A Clue.

AJP

TJM said...

The toppling of Junipero Serra's statute was the work of the Democratic Party's stormtroopers. Useful idiots in our clergy, applaud

Anonymous said...


Kinsey Institute for Sex Research? LOL. So you think their research is without motive and agenda and therefore is reliable?

Read the following:

Kinsey Institute-what you should know

Do Gorsuch and Roberts know about this?

Anonymous said...

Anon 2:29 - Whose research do you suggest?

Is their research without motive and agenda?

Anonymous said...

Anonymous@2:29

The Kinsey Institute was brought up in the first comment.
A dubious source of information to say the least.

Unknown said...

Sophia here.

Happy Father's Day Father. Another cause of LGBTQ+ is sexual abuse and grooming.
Your analysis of the root cause of problems in the Black community and others is spot on. Here is a broader discussion in this priest's Father's Day homily at the Extraordinary Form Mass at St John Cantius Church in Chicago. It begins at approximately 25 minutes in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-9U4sepQX8

Anonymous said...

Father is right on about the root cause---the collapse of two-parent families, no father figure. We never hear anything about that from the mainstream media---why not? Maybe they are thinking, "who am I to judge?" You will never get a grip on crime in our inner cities until illegitimacy declines---and I don't mean declines because there are more abortions. The threat of jail or the death penalty scares few because many feel they are going to die young whether in the legal system or on the streets. IF you think you are going to die young anyway, do you care by what means that happens?

Nothing "gay" about it said...

I often hear the "weak/absent father" theory of male homosexuality dismissed. The only problem is, and this is only anecdotal, is that I have seen it as a reality far more often than I can think of homosexual men with strong, interactive fathers. Almost always, the majority of gay men I've known either had absent fathers, weak fathers or abusive fathers. And I've known quite a few.

It would be interesting to see what some of your other readers have observed.

More perceptive than Bee said...

This reader has observed that TJM is useless.

Anonymous said...

Bee here:

I watched a documentary on PBS (Independent Lens) entitled "Tre Maison Dasan: Life With a Parent in Prison." "...a moving portrait of three unforgettable young boys struggling to grow up with a parent in prison."

It is a heart-breaking movie about three boys with at least one parent who is not there because of incarceration. The most heart breaking of the three is Tre. To watch the effects of circumstances on this great kid, this kid with a beautiful heart, just brought tears to my eyes. There is a scene where Tre is visiting his dad in prison, and his dad is struggling to parent him, to warn him, to guide him, and you see the dad's own despair as he realizes what not being available daily to his son is leading to, and Tre's wide-eyed soulful looking at his dad, trying hard to receive the counsel of his father. The impact of a child without his father is evident.

It's not just jail either. It's a disconnect and diminishment of the role of a father in the family, in any family, as if fathers are just nice to have but not necessary. Looks like some of our "progress" in the last 50 years has really been regression.

God bless.
Bee



TJM said...

More perceptive than Bee (Anonymous K),

Here is something I would like to see you defend, after all, it's your side:

Shaun King said Monday it’s time for anything resembling “white Jesus” to be expunged from the public square.

The staunch Black Lives Matter activist made the comments as online activists continued to debate which statues and monuments were culturally unacceptable in 2020.

The May 25 death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, under the weight of Minneapolis police served as the impetus for activists to tear down statues of historical figures like Christopher Columbus and George Washington.

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

The movie isn't diagnosing the root cause of homosexuality. It is making a statement about week or absent fathers who have children who are rebelling against their fathers and become delinquents because of it. It is a part of the normal emancipation from parents that most teenagers experience but for some because of factors in the home it takes a dark turn.

Natalie Wood's character is not homosexual. James Dean's character is not homosexual. Mineo's character has an implied homosexuality shown subtly in the film of this period. I doubt that many watching it in the 1950's understood what the film was implying. Mineo's character has a father who abandoned the family and a mother who is missing in action.

The movie, though, is not about homosexuality but rebellious teenagers who become delinquents based upon family dynamics. Do all kids who have dysfunctional famiiles become delingquints or homosexuals, no.

However, there is more crime in the black community directed towards other blacks and often the perpetrators are delingquints who belong to gangs and have missing fathers. Blacks acknowledge this and have for years be trying to deal with the foundational issue concerning this and it isn't white racism or the fact of slavery which ended 100 years ago. Most freed slaves became law abiding citizens and formed strong families and upright children.

TJM said...

LBJ’s Aid to Dependent Children Program may have been a root cause for Black men abandoning their families, just a thought

Donald Link said...

When you subsidize something, you get more of it. AID is a good example but can apply to many other government programs, especially those in which the recipient is asked nothing in return to society.